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This site has been effectively suspended for five years. And if you read its “about” you’ll see why. However, I am now belatedly adding this EULOGY.

Cy was a pseudonym for ANDREW.

I first encountered him well over twenty years ago, when he began contributing toward a Mensa writers SIG I ran (Mensa: we might have both been crazy, but at least we weren’t stupid).

And although we never met, over the next two decades plus, I got to know and grow fond of the man.

Back then, I was about forty and he, fifty (today, sixty-four and DEAD).

And over the years, I have built up a picture of him.

He liked Doowop and Radio Caroline – and hated trees.

He was something of a loner, living in a flat in southern England.

He had had a relationship with a woman many years earlier – but when he realised he was gay, it did not end well.

Now, while I was a product of the Swingin’ Sixties, Andrew hailed from the Repressed Fifties.

And being gay was ILLEGAL then. And even when, in 1967, this was overturned – little changed.

For a start, the age of gay consent was pegged at twenty-one and remained so for many years.

And Andrew was repelled by the idea of congress with a mature man – and scared to death of same with a young man.

Although it seems he occasionally succumbed to his orientation – but was FILLED with guilt and self-loathing afterwards.

Also, I believe he might have been manic-depressive (U.S. – bipolar).

This is evidenced by his posts (a mixture of BRILLIANT angst-ridden scribblings – and routine, mundane blogging) – and his habit of periodically DELETING his blog (and clubbing his computer to death with a hammer).

But eventually, he would acquire another computer and RETURN.

However, after he gave me his password for THIS blog – it containing a lot of good stuff, not only from Andrew; but by THIS and OTHER writers – I took the opportunity of DOWNLOADING it.

Then, the next time he had a rush of blood, I edited his trivia out of my shadow file (retaining his GOOD stuff) then created this blog, uploaded the material to it and presented the result to him.

I said I’d delete his stuff if he REALLY wanted me to – but he said it was cool.

Thus far, I have presented an image of a troubled, unhappy man; one with deep issues – who was born a decade too early.

But a man has many parts. And Andrew had always harboured a desire to visit what he believed was his spiritual home – Los Angeles. Particularly Hollywood.

And so, some years back, he saved his pennies and WENT there – for a holiday. And a few years later, instead of exploring elsewhere, he REPEATED the experience.

Both times, he took many pictures, sticking them on his current blog (there may be some on this one).

But this was his last hurrah. Soon would come the end. Alzheimer’s fried his Mensa-level brain during his last months In This Place – and eventually killed him.

Nevertheless, at least this gave him a peaceful, painless passing.

He always thought his blog writings would be valued long after his passing – possibly by aliens. I never tried to dispossess him of this.

In any case, some of the BEST of his work is at least preserved HERE, below.

Currently – over the past eight years – more than fifteen hundred souls have stumbled across these ramblings. A handful may even some day read THIS.

So in closing, I’d like to state that I am the richer for having known Andrew – and the poorer since his passing.

So this American nut-job acquires fifty-odd wild animals for his own private zoo – then frees them and blows his head off. And in short order, the trigger-happy cops turn up and the whole thing turns into the last reel of “Bonnie And Clyde” – so who’s to blame?

Well, obviously the “owner” (I use parentheses, since the true term SHOULD be “carer”) – but by all accounts he was a (now what’s the word? …rhymes with punt). And his wife does not appear to be much further up the food chain – she’s currently trying to regain possession of the few beasts who were lucky enough to escape the massacre.

According to their neighbours, the couple are gun-nuts as well.

However, the cops do not escape blame either. A number of the animals were simply standing – confused – by their cages when the pigs opened fire, hiding behind “public safety” (well, I suppose it makes a change from “security” – the usual reason they cite for inhuman behaviour).

But the real villains here are the legislators who allow ordinary people to have “exotic pets” in the first place.

Americans LOVE ’em. It is said there are more tigers in Texas than there are in India. I live in Thailand and we are supposed to have them – although the only example I ever came across was a cute baby one I ended up bottle-feeding, on my lap.

But that’s the point, don’t you see? Tigers, lions, chimps and others ARE cute – when they’re YOUNG. But as Nature runs its course, they get BIGGER. And if you piss off a fully-grown chimp, it’ll rip your FACE off. Pound for pound, they’re WAY stronger than humans. As for tigers…

Then there are alligators. In the Thirties, people kept baby ones in tanks… Oh, sorry – that was a gag item in a local newspaper, written on a slow news day, that spread and entered Urban Myth. There are NO alligators in New York’s sewers.

However, “dangerous” animals ARE kept as pets all over America (again, I use parentheses – “dangerous” is a subjective term – I am a dangerous animal, if you are a mosquito) – and other “developed” countries.

This SHOULD NOT BE. Wild animals should be given their own bit of the wild – and left ALONE.

It’s no use blaming them for doing what comes naturally.

A water buffalo was about to cross a river, when a scorpion asked if it could ride over, on its back. The water buffalo replied that it didn’t want to get STUNG. But the scorpion pointed out if it did that, they would BOTH drown. And so the buffalo agreed to ferry it.

This morning I dropped in on Boots, in Saxon Square Arcade, in Christchurch (CX). I stood squarely on the weighing machine and it told me I weighed 81 kg, NOT 67 kg as the machine in downtown Bournemouth said.

I knew it all along, subconsciously. The problem was that I DID NOT STAND SQUARELY ON THE PLATFORM in Bournemouth!

As you can imagine, I made the universe pay for its dirty tricks. I had a flapjack with my pot of tea at the Regent. I had a slice of Dorset apple cake at the market (every Monday in CX).

I also bought the three CDs (for £20) recorded by the trio Borderlines (two of them, the duo Jezebel, were playing in Saxon Square).

I bought War Cry (putting in a quid coin) AND I bought the new BIG ISSUE (£2 plus 40p extra). I told the bloke that I was glad to see the back of the Halloween cover (last week’s).

Finally, I bought Daily Echo, Daily Mail, and the i newspaper. And at the same shop a can of Ginger Beer.

THAT ought to teach the cosmos, aka life, aka everything, a lesson for messing me around, would you not agree?

The content of The Great Movie Stars book is very fine. I expect there is a HARDBACK version which is easy to read. I bet you just lay it upon the library table, open it, and it behaves itself, staying open, not trying to close.

Sadly, the Angus and Robertson PAPERBACK version (646 pages) that I bought for £2, at a very useful charity book shop, in the far east end of Bournemouth, fights you. You wait to hear it splutter from the bitter depths of its shame:

“Hands off, damn you! I believe you have a corn flakes packet you ought to be reading, you irrelevant oik!”

Like many other modern, gummed-spine books, it will not allow you to relax whilst you read. As you attempt to make progress, it desires to close itself and resume its glossy pose. By the time you are ready to settle in to reading, you are struggling to hold the book open.

It is not just that (in my copy of TGMS at least) the pages 471 to 478 (half of Sidney Poitier; all of Jane Powell, Elvis Presley, and Robert Preston; and half of Vincent Price) are missing (not ripped out by a previous owner, just never there in the first place). No, it is much worse than that.

I do not know for certain the technical term used by the publishing and printing industries, but ditch sounds familiar, and it will have to do for the middle where the lines of print seek to curve downwards into where you are just going to have to GUESS what it says…

So, by page 216, you have had enough, and you grab each side, and you prize it apart, and there is a cracking sound, and from then on… the problem has gone, except that the pages will eventually start falling out.

And the whole problem need not happen at all because there is a wide white margin on one side of every page. Captions for the monochrome photographs are plonked in these otherwise empty margins.

The margins are ALWAYS on the outside of the page. If the margins were in the ditch there would be no problem. No prizing. No cracking.

The easy answer is to buy hardbacks. And if we do not buy hardbacks, we just have to suffer.

As for my Shipman TGMS, I am well aware that it is an inanimate object, but I when I hold it in my unworthy, living, sentient hands, I feel so much empathy with the poor, inadequate, incomplete, busted thing…

His Leeds accent on Radio Luxembourg, and then on BBC TV, grated upon my ears, but, bit by bit, I was forced to admire his work for charity, and his kindness to terminally-ill people on his Jim Will Fix It show. Found dead in his flat today, the radio and TV presenter, Jimmy Savile, leads the TV News in UK tonight.

Tony Prince (another Northern DJ whom I used to scorn) explained on Sky News that Jimmy Savile got past the Musician’s Union (when he wanted to play records at the local dance hall) by paying the musicians to take the night off.

Before this broke, Jay and I were in the Costa (part of Premier, which is the same as Whitbread) off Reception in what pop stars in the Sixties knew as the Palace Court Hotel. The slope of Westover Road enables the bar to fit cosily into the space above three shops (including what is now Rafael).

Jay also took video today of the combo down on the Square, two guys called Jezebel. Sometimes another person joins them (guy or gal, CD photo not clear) and they are then called The Borderlines… The guitar man asked Jay for a copy of the video, which Jay will supply on a DVD.

I was listening during the Summer of 1976, in Room 69 at the YMCA (next to Palace Court) on my multiple band radio, to the Fire channel during the forest and heath fires. North of this conurbation and south of the A31 Ringwood Road, one day, a fire threatened the Saint Leonard’s Community Hospital. From the road, today, looking south from the A31, you still cannot see the hospital for the trees.

Over the radio, I heard the fire fighter on the scene suddenly yelled “PRIORITY” and report a ten-metre-high front of flame rearing up suddenly in its advance nothwards towards the hospital. The Controller immediately gave the order for all units to withdraw, giving up on the giant weeds, and forming a new line of defence south of the hospital, in the actual hospital grounds.

The news of the fires was on national bulletins and Jimmy Savile heard it. He did a u-turn and headed his van down here to help. He was a voluntary hospital porter himself. Before too long, the patients found themselves on the highway, in wheeled beds or stretchers, for the day, until it became clear that the flames were out, and that the ground was saturated, as the night came down…

After only recently mentioning Edmundo Ros in my Post about Dinah Kaye who worked with the Latin American bandleader and had just died, Spencer Leigh in the i newspaper did an obit on ER who has now died at 100. One song in his style on BBC radio was OK. A whole show, no.

Edmundo William Ros was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1910. His mother was an African Venezuelan, and his father was pink Scottish. Ros was one of many boring old musicians shoved at me on BBC Light when I wanted Doo Wop or Rock n Roll as a boy.

Lindsi Bluemel, the lady cyclist whose skid-lid was stolen, and who came off her bike thanks to litter on the freeway cycle lane, is still in hospital in serious state, according to yesterday’s Daily Echo in Bournemouth. He family members have rotated watch at her bedside.

I felt terrific after a long walk in the prolonged downpour, from Parley Cross to the Aviation Industrial Park. The Airport Shuttle bus then took me to the terminal. I was delighted to see the History Wall which has an easy-to-read image-and-text mural of the 1941-2011 story of RAF-Hurn thru BOH. Top marks to the graphic creators involved. No arty rubbish, just a wonderful job!

However, the private owners of BOH are intent upon forcing every car-driver to pay for entering their holy precinct. You are frowned on if you drop someone off on the highway (Parley Lane) when they want you to drive in, park, and pay.

A guy wrote to Daily Echo last week. He had been dropped off, and then set off to walk in. As I have found many times before: NO SIDEWALKS! How long can this go on.

A much-flung accusation against Radio Caroline after the ship-based British pop radio station began at Easter 1964 was that the owners did not pay royalties to the artists who made the records that were played.

Caroline insisted that she was ready to pay as soon as Phonographic Performance Limited would meet to make the arrangements. But PPL refused to legitimize what they regarded as a criminal operation.

Yet MV Caroline (in Douglass Bay, Isle of Man) and Mi Amigo (off Frinton, Essex) were outside British territorial waters and broke no law. Similarly, Voice of America had the ship Courier at sea off Greece during the war twixt communists and nationalists after World War 2.

In the Daily Echo of Bournemouth, today we read that PPL have imposed a ban on a night club a night club downtown. Dust Til Dawn on Old Christchurch Road, owned by M&R Nightclubs Limited, have no licence.

After a visit by PPL inspectors on 11 May 2011, letters were sent to the venue informing the company of copyright laws, and the need to buy a licence to play any form of mechanically recorded music.

PPL represents around 5,000 record companies and 42,000 performers, covering 97% of all music, and, depending upon audience and venue size, can charge as little as 14p a day, says Jonathan Morrish, PPL spokesperson.

High Court judge “Justice” Mann has presented M&R with a legal bill of £1,700 and a fortnight in which to pay. A £10,000 fine and prison for 6 months are on the back-burner ready to bring forth in the case of breaching the ban on playing any more music before the matter is sorted.

I did not see, in the Daily Echo story today, anything about the geographical location of M&R or its owners.

Paul McKinnon, in yesterday’s i newspaper, did an obit for Dinah Kaye (1924-2011). I expect the piece will be reachable via the internet. It is well worth it for the fascinating insight it gives into the way a singer can work with many bands, first resident, and then freelance.

Born Kay Cumming in Burma of Scots parents, husky and smokey of voice (like my putative daughter, it just occurs to me now, whom I last met at aged five in 1969, but she had asthma, not helped by her Mum’s chain-smoking Park Drive plain over babyhood nappy changing) Dinah Kaye was to work with, and record first with, Edmundo Ross.

It is clearly true that Dinah Kaye did not work with EVERY band from 1943 onward, but I am tempted to wonder if she worked with MOST bands of the time. London, Netherlands, USA, Canada, South Africa, America, Israel, Poland, Malta, Tanzania, Rhodesia, West Germany, and Switzerland, were part of her beat. Jealous Eyes and Just Another Polka are recording landmarks.

I have noticed that every town in England now has something called a Vision. The planners put out a Vision for Tatty Sponfield. Or a Vision for Cobblers Regis. Etc. The Vision for Salisbury is currently being argued over. Obviously, there will be arty clutter all over the Market Place, costing millions, designed by talent-free arty-chokes who will demand millions for some drunken doodle made real, around which everybody will have to walk, and which will get stuffed with beer cans and bottles.

Miranda Robinson, of The Journal, in Salisbury (I picked up the 13 October issue at Fordingbridge), wrote up the story of jazz musician Peter Williams, or Verwood, who was contacted by Woody Allen, two years after sending a demo CD to that Oscar-winning writer and director (not to mention stand in with a clarinet or something in his neighboring New York City.

Peter Williams had recorded Seul De Soir in 2008 after moving to Copenhagen where he set up a Quartet named Signor Jazz (now disbanded). He knew Cynthia Sayer, banjo player in Woody’s own jazz band, so off went the CD. So, now Woody wants to use the track for a film he has just finished.

Another Signor Jazz track, Swing 41, could also end up on a Sony release of the Midnight In Paris soundtrack. All these data are quoted from Miranda, in the right detail, but no necessarily in the right order. Of the movie, she says:

“Midnight in Paris, which features Owen Wilson, Kathy Bates, Carla Bruni, and Michael Sheen, is the first Woody Allen film in years to reach the multiplexes and has charmed the critics.”

It has? Cannot be any good, then. Must be arty-tarty stuff, obviously. Let me add that I have never heard of any of the actors listed. By the way, I cannot re-write the above rigmarole because it is too convoluted. Who am I talking to. They all skipped it anyway. Nor is anybody reading this end remark either. So I will shut up.

(Thursday 20 October 2011) It was a five screener again, but I really need a dozen screens. Gadaff the laugh (unless you were in his custody) made his dash for the desert just too late. I came in on the story at the very first break.

Home from shopping, I had watched a few minutes of same-old when one of the screens had a tiny, tentative: REPORTS CLAIM KADAFFI KILLED (or something similar.) Then, one by one, they all took it up. I based on CNN, Sky, Fox, BBC, and Al Jazera. But I had to keep dropping FNC and/or BBC to check France 24, Euronews, RT, CCTV, etc for their angles. It nicely filled the rest of the day.

Earlier, I had bought the i newspaper (excellent 20p digest-style daily run by The Independent). I was drawn by the story of UK accepting CIA advice that dealing with certain gentlemen required an option for secret trials.

This is to keep the identities of agents who are tracking ters in prep for nailing them. Sounds good to me. I certainly would not have anything to do with Radio Free Plymouth if things had been dodgy in 1969 as they are now.

I love the Post in Cornelius, by Vincent, about what types of movie he would never make, if he had the money. Click link in sidebar under Favourite Blogs.

A piece by Jonathan Brown in i reports on the £10 million clean up (finished in 2002) that removed 2 million tons of coal from the 20 km of beaches twixt Sunderland and Hartlepool and writes:

“They were the haunting black beaches that helped to put the noir into the classic British gangster film Get Carter and provided the bleak futuristic backdrop for Alien 3.”

In Bournemouth, Daily Echo continues to cover the story of the calamitous stupidity of the Borough Council in being conned by New Zealand company ASR. The useless Boscombe Surf Reef, comprising big heavy-duty sacks of sand plastic, never worked.

“…were very convincing and plausible and they have been able to convince many communities here and round the world of their abilities -their actual performance, however, has been woeful and disgraceful.”

How much more public cash will Tories in power spend, to no avail, before they get real, and admit that their line, about being the experts, is just so much loony-style political propaganda? Abandon the surf grief and resign.

Meanwhile, in Bournemouth Magistrates Court, the heroes Alistair Collier and Harvey Lee continue to be put through the inquisition by tree-hugging preservationist perverts. These two cut rings in the bark of five giant weeds, three Corsican pines, and two Scots pines, which were blocking both the Poole Harbour view, and needed development. They will go down in history as martyrs. The madness cannot go on forever. Sanity must dawn, one day.

The Titanic owners thought that marketing was all that was needed. If you picked out a feature of the design and said that it made the ship virtually unsinkable, then the job was done. But the job was the same job that the fair-ground carny does.

Other facts were ignored. Plus the steel used was not of merchantable quality. It was flimsy and inferior. Such an approach is not to do with honesty and integrity. It is to do with making the customers happy UNTIL the test of the con trick brings the dawn of reality.

Privatized, and almost unregulated, manufacturing and service industry of the late twentieth century is the same deal. And, guess what? The merchantable quality of members of parliament, and of local council officials is equally flawed.

The so called surf reef by Boscombe Pier was never going to work in sheltered waters of the English Channel, and on top of that Poole Bay. But £3 million was paid to the carnies. They have just tootled off back to New Zealand, saying that the weather makes it impossible, until next summer, to repair the bags of sand of which the worthless device is comprised.

It is pointless my repeating here the exact comments of the pro and the con this project. It can all be read via the Daily Echo link on the Sumpnado Sidebar under Bournemouth links. The ugly device is garbage in the sea. Its indirect effect of promoting development of the nearby seafront facilities is no more than a part-success. Hardly any of the units (which are merely storage lockers lacking any services) have been sold.

BIG ISSUE was 20 years old a couple of weeks ago. It is very difficult to wrap my brain around the fact that it is two decades since I noticed noticed a young man selling the mag at the north-east corner of the intersection of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road, in London, near the steps down to the tube.

I am bitterly disappointed that NHK (TV news from Japan in English) has gone HD without a plain version remaining on the Eurobird (including Sky) satellite. I valued the NHK coverage of the recent earthquake and tsunami above all other channels.

SF writers of the 1930s and 1940s sometimes supposed a future culture where the term “video” was used rather than the later term television. So I loved it when the word video was used in the record “Video Killed The Radio Star”. Of course, the word video has still come to mean, in the minds of later generations, a moving picture coupled with a record, aka song.

I had no idea, prior to Star Wars, that SF could become (and it DID become) the MAIN GAME in fiction feature movies.

Honesty is the best policy but he who is governed by that maxim is not [necessarily] an honest man. This quotation is from Richard Whately 1787-1863. He was an English philosopher and sky guy fan who became Archbishop of Dublin in 1831.

Similarly, profit potential makes manufacturing and service industry attractive to people with capital to invest, but the capitalist who values maximizing profit as the most important goal is not a worthy man. He is a vile and vulgar creature who should be awarded zero esteem from any gentleman or lady of true quality.

As it happens, even those of us low quality, but a modicum of clear visions, like me, can see enough to despise the and detest the loathsome legalized mega-spivs putting out fancy fakery and glossy garbage, without honorable substance.

Out at the east end of Boscombe, just before Pokesdown, in the 700’s of Christchurch Road, is a new bookshop that also does coffee and vintage furniture/curios.

Name? Not going to tell you. I have to go in week by week first, and buy the yummy Isaac Asimov, Robert Anson Heinlein, and Douglas Neil Adams old SF titles before you do.

I bought Methuselah’s Children and Tunnel In The Sky by RAH, plus a Valentine black and white photographic booklet of Sydney New South Wales posted from there at 11h30 on 9 July 1951 to a lady in Dudley Worcestershire.

The Harbour Bridge, and Circular Quay, are pictured, but not the Opera House. Titchy Bondi Beach is there, but not the magnificent Manley Beach, although we do see The Harbour Pool and Ferry Wharf in back of Manley.

No sign of the Caltex Building, of course. It was the first of the post-war high rises in the Circular Quay business district. This is according to my memory of Australasian Post, PIX, and People magazines sent to us in York.

The 60-year-old pix (like a drop-down menu) show how my uncle (1910-1969) would have known it, when he went out there in about 1950 to work at TCN9 as a graphic artist. He took the Manly Ferry every morning.

There now follows a brief development of an idea that occurred to me whilst riding on the bus. I noted it down. This was during my recent offline hiatus. Now it can be told:

An abandoned or bereaved child commonly fantasizes (we are told) that Mom and Dad did not REALLY want to leave them behind, or are not REALLY dead. Someday they will turn up and take their loved one away from all this. Then there will be a life happily ever after.

Similarly, EXACTLY similarly, innocently ignorant folk in bygone superstitious times, and willfully ignorant folk of these scientific times, imagine, through all the horror and terror of life in both nature and human society, that there is a loving, powerful, big daddy in the sky who will, one day reward them for their ritual and praise…

BIG ISSUE this week features a review by Steven MacKenzie of the new book Aleph (Harper Collins £14.99p) by the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho who suffered badly for his political beliefs in an asylum and then torture prison.

Paulo Coelho previously wrote the widely read book The Alchemist, and now distributes his work online for free. In an interview he said :

“At this present moment, all bridges are collapsing, economic, political, social. There is only one bridge still standing: the cultural bridge…

“…I may not understand your political system, I may not understand your religion, but I understand your story. I understand your painting. I understand your music, your dancing.

“There you have this bridge. It is my responsibility as a writer to do my best not to allow this bridge to collapse.”

Steven MacKenzie reports that, last year, Paulo Coelho was declared the second most influential Twitter user in a survey carried out by Forbes magazine. Justin Beiber won the top slot and his positively-thinking runner-up had this to say (sincerely):

“I’m really crossing my fingers for Justin Beiber to use his celebrity to do something. He is very young but I hope he can use his influence to do something good.”

In response to my Complaint to BT, a guy called on the phone. Apparently, I was wrong. (See previous Post.) In fact, BT are smoochy-poo holy-angels and can do no wrong. The BT guy points out to me that I am OK now, and I should not worry about the other guy, and he needs to call Sky because it is all their fault.

Setting sarcasm aside, I viewed two flats today, one in Poole which was on the first floor (level 2) and one in Christchurch which was on the ground floor but too small. I want ground floor, own door, tub not shower, and on a bus route. Virgin connectivity would be nice.

Five thousand years ago, people on this (not all that long before, covered in ice) piece of planet Earth, were imprisoned in a hell of primitive technology and superstitious ignorance. They had no smart phones but plenty of bronze dug by child slaves.

Whenever a thug calling himself a king, or one of his gang, or one of their kids, died, the people were pressed into the work of heaping mounds of earth over the dead body. Fortunately, most of these heaps of odious memory have been plowed flat for farming efficiency.

But at Nine Barrow Down, in the Purbeck Hills (where 23 barrows remain) a few people, imprisoned in a weird world of delusion about an idealized past, are making a fuss to preserve these reminders of ignorance, superstition, and brutishness.

Jim Durkin, in a Swanage free glossy magazine, writes that the barrows are protected by English Heritage, but the National Trust is responsible for their management. Jim quotes National Trust ranger Paul Bradley:

“We want everybody who enjoys Nine Barrow Down to help us care for these barrows. If we encourage the grass to grow again on these barrows, then they will last for perhaps another 5,000 years.”

Amelia Roe, another of the National Trust rangers says:

We do not want cyclists or horses going over the barrows as this is causing quite a deal of damage and erosion… People will tend to stick to what they think is a well-worn path… …because of the erosion, it does look like a path runs over [the barrows].”

There is a “proper track” but most of it is only vaguely visible. So to further persecute any freedom-loving, fresh-air-seeking people of our hard-won-free, now-born-free nation, the Trust has placed hazel hurdles in the way…

So, go thou, I bid thee, up there, and do the hoe-down, the knees-up, the highland fling, the hokey-kokey, the twist, the Harlem shuffle, and any other prances and dances you can think of. England expects every dude to do his duty and shake his you-know-what…

Paul Rand was paid $100,000 for the NexT logo. This I learned in one of the obits for Steve Jobs. I pride myself that I can suss most things but that one beats me. Why DO people fail to recognize marketing and public relations output for the con job that it is?

The Dolphin pub (nice stone and brick building) on Holdenhurst Road, suddenly closed about three months ago. Now it is being converted to a Tesco Express. It is right opposite Aldi, and a Premier shop is just a few doors away. Cooperative Food is three blocks away. Asda is just down the road by the rail and coach station. Who is going to win this war?

The tethered helium balloon in Central Gardens, by Bournemouth Square, on the Bourne stream, lost its Wave Radio sponsor some time ago. With the Wave logo (comprising the name only, in a nice and plain font) gone, I noticed that the balloon (which takes sight-seers up and down for about ten quid) has an aircraft registration: G-CFBF -how fascinating! My father (1896-1984) used to love the balloon at York Gala when he was a boy.

It was amusing to me when I saw the South Coast Mobility (selling old folks electric chairs) move from its small shop to fill the great big motorbike place opposite (at the junction of Shelley Road and Ashley Road in Boscombe). At the same time the motorbike place (yummy steeds lined up inside and outside) moved to a much smaller place where the curio shop used to be (the one that had the “red Indian chief” outside). Le plus ca change the more weird it gets. Or has old Earth seen it all before?

Sturton and Tappers are closing down. You can get 70% reductions on their lovely furniture. Everything must go. Winton loses another old firm. Actually, it may even be the last. Three cinemas long gone, of course. Even the Bingo that took over the cinema down the north end been taken over by a new age indoctrination group.

Just like the French airliner cabin crew that failed to spot that their plane was nose up in a stall and falling, and pulled back on the stick sealing their fate, the staff of service industries will be helpless when the big cyber crash comes. Paper? Pen? Writing stuff down? Huh…?

What a shame that Matt Taibbi is getting no credit for his work in Rolling Stone magazine, and his books, exposing the financial service industries crime wave (NOT financial crisis as the moronic news media at large put it). He never should have used the f word so much, at all in fact.

Fox News (15 years old recently) carried the entire Obama news conference live, on Thursday 6 October. Sky, CNN, Beeb peeled off after a few questions. FNC weirds me out. One moment I hate it for its fawning upon the great god Profit. Then it does something noble. CNBC and Bloomberg aired the whole thing too, of course.

At the time of tapping (on these keys) I am still in a deep abyss of mire and desire to quit the computer hobby. Fate has given me the middle finger with the BT Broadband fiasco. Why should I not walk away and admit defeat?

This is completely made up. The idea is merely my suggestion. There OUGHT TO BE a new TV Soap Opera based in this Poole Bay conurbation.

One thread would be young pop groups such as Gun Angel. Another would be spivs in the local authority.

Add drunken yuppies rampaging downtown each evening, .

It OUGHT TO use filler from the daily-diary trivia wot I write. Today, some thrilling filling includes the kid on the auto-checkout at Tesco Castle Lane looking with dismay for his fiver, to supplement his coins change for his tenner.

“Don’t forget your fiver down here, mate” I said, pointing to it.

He eye-contacted the scruff old bloke with embarrassed acknowledgement. I thought of the Tommy Handley character who said “Don’t forget the diver, sir. Don’t forget the diver…”

Another thrill, or nil, fill in my suggestion submission would be the wee girl and her grandmother at the cafeteria next table. “Urgh! The table’s wet!” I quickly whipped out the K-roll from my back pack. “How many pages to you want?” She said one. Grandma said two.

The bus gangway was blocked by a fat lady or gent (difficult to say which) holding the luggage ledge, and the baby buggy handle sticking out. I ducked and did a waddle under neath. An old couple made a sound of how-about-that and I said “I didn’t know it would work but I thought I’d try it!”

These minimalist no-frills ad-type fills only last 20 seconds but they segue into another thread clip. The wandering hero needs to be a war-timer, in his last daze. Thread warriors need to be jelly baby all sorts of young students, jobless, and employed geeks, brought together by the issues and miscues, of life, liberty, and the pursuit of zappy-ness, in ye bar-life and ye car-life.

Needless to say, the beach activities scene, and the celeb scene in Sandbanks and Branksome, and such fights as the freeway completion versus the Greens, and the Movie-Academy scandal of the students versus the know-all arty course leaders, as discussed in the uni cafe, and on the social sites, are goodly thread feed, for starters.

Dig the pic above of the hotel, only 200 years old, and the first toff holiday house built to found Bournemouth, on the empty heath twixt 3,000-year-old ports of Poole to the west and Twynham to the east. And dig ye 1950s new Methodist church, built to replace the WW2 blitzed one on the Square, now being converted to more popular use; rumor says a strip club. Check out the good old Google camera shadow in foreground and the half-wiped bird mess up top. Peeking in the distance, the old Royal Court Hotel where ye Beatles stayed, and divers other Pop idols, plus dolls.

Or I could stick to listening to the Tony Paul Show on Radio Caroline…

A prolific contributor over many years, to the HAVE YOUR SAY readers’ letters page in the Daily Echo of Bournemouth, has this to say on the recent Blackberry network failures:

It is naive to think that this is a coincidence or an accidental fault.

As [the Blackberry] network has been used for criminal and terrorist activities we must be aware that leaders of the super powers need to monitor it.

There is no doubt in my mind that “big brother” is, and rightly so, systematically interrupting the service globally to install software that will highlight suspicious messaging.

We have a right to our privacy, but also a right to expect to be kept safe by our respective governments. This minor inconvenience is surely a small price to pay.

Jay, on a visit to Wales, responds:

OK, that’s a new one on me. I did not hear about it because I have not had the time to read any papers.

It would provide an excellent cover to install such software, and RIM would lose business if this got into the public domain.

The problem that RIM face now is that free apps work almost as well, and provide a seamless email experience without complication, for free.

Security is best carried out with multiple devices and addresses.

Sim card changes, and random name and address changes, can foil phishing and provide privacy on a more secure level than the blackberry encoding, due to the diversity of the component parts.

It’s down to the level of interest of the individual.

-Jay

I, Cy, having just turned 71, and having no interest in acquiring a Blackberry, and floundering right now in a rush of work resulting from a privatized telephone service mess up, which I made worse by cancelling all my direct debits in a panic, say, ha-ha, I’m glad, go to Hell all of yez.

First time I’ve done this – posted the item below on my own site today and then thought that it is the kind of thing I sometimes put on here. So………

There was an item on the BBC East news programme (which covers the area in which I live) last night (26th September) concerning political utterances at the Labour Party Conference affecting the region.

I would not have heard the words in question first hand as they were spoken by the Labour “leader” Mr Ed Miliband – a man who not only resembles one of Nick Park’s animated characters from the “Creature Comforts” series but also possesses a Doctor Who style “perception filter” which causes my attention to wander FAR away the moment he opens his mouth!

The words he is supposed to have spoken concerning East Anglia are these:

“The Eastern Region is central to Labour’s plans”.

Knowing my way with words as you do, can you see where I’m going with this?

Of course, the sentence was uttered in the context that Labour has only two MPs in East Anglia and the message referred to target seats if there is ever another General Election – NOT as any kind of reassurance to East Anglians looking to improve their job prospects or the prosperity of the region generally.

It was, basically, advice to potential Labour candidates to the effect that “Here is where you will have to lie the hardest”!

However, since there are always boundary changes in the offing, I hope that said candidates will bear in mind that if East Anglia is CENTRAL to their leader’s plans then some of them are going to wind up with constituencies in the middle of the North Sea!

That being the case, let me tell you about an incident at the eastbound bus stop on Holdenhurst Road by ASDA, yesterday.

A little dude who was just emerging from toddler-hood into small-boy-hood (nearly 3 I guess) was putting his case for going into the Co-op shop at the gas/petrol station to make a purchase of some desired commodity.

His accompanying (28-year-old it turned out) male escort (I guess his Dad) was explaining that they were on their way to the big park where there was run-around space, plus swings and climbing frames.

The man was expert in his approach. Whilst holding the little guy by the shoulders to keep him from darting out into the forecourt, the man pressed his case for the park. It would be fun.

Over a period of about two minutes the youngster gradually calmed down. His father had never raised his voice. It was a perfect example of fathering.

Just as the yellow 2 bus hove in sight around the roundabout, the wino lady, who had been sitting on the seat outside the bus shelter and heard the young gentleman protesting bitterly, but could not have heard anything the man said, put in her oar.

“You don’t sound like a very caring father…”

The man recoiled in obvious shock. He suggested that she mind her on own business. The wino lady asked “How old are you mate?” The man answered “28”. She made an aside to the effect that she had children and grandchildren so she must know something about it. He was obviously in a shaken state as he followed me, with his lad, onto the bus.

Let me explain: Since the wino-occupied seat by the westbound stop was removed (on the opposite side of the road where the six-level student accommodation block replacing B&Q is three-quarters built) the winos have colonised the eastbound stop. It has the sunshine too.

I sat two rows back. The man took his son to the back seat. After the first stop, I dinged the bell and went back to say something:

“You’re an excellent father, mate. You did a great job.”

The hurt man looked up, somewhat soothed and perhaps a little startled I judge, and muttered something about “that woman…”

“Er, she is a wino anyhow” I said. “Her idea would have been to stuff her children with unhealthy sugar products…”

My stop was rapidly nearing so I turned to set off back for the front of the bus. The man said:

“Thankyou.”

I turned back with a smile and a thumbs up. I was looking at two good friends for life, father and son, thanks to a father who was an expert.

He probably took me for a wise old granddad who was an authority. He had no way of knowing that I am actually a dysfunctional pervert and that I routinely mess up in the area of human exchanges and relations, whether at work or just walking the street.

It certainly made ME feel better. It is the third occasion in my life where I have made a positive contribution. The first was in Bearwood, Birmingham, about 1962. The second was in Dunblane, Scotland, about 1980.

“Most people would agree that it was some time in the 1950s, yet its roots stretch back to the 1920s. What was the first rock ‘n’ roll record…?

“While the good and great of rock’s early and middle years were passing away, the new vanguard of mainstream pop music was mostly vapid collection of rappers, rockers and DJs (who aren’t musicians). Everything was getting dumbed down. Great music – featuring great musicianship – was still, as always, being created… …but it was becoming increasingly hard to hear, see, or find…”

“It’s somewhat hard to fathom that rock ‘n’ roll – that unruly, rebellious music of the young – is now in its sixth decade…”.

I would like to offer my sympathy to the family of the deceased (for nobody with soul and body still teamed could possibly let this gorgeous book go) for their loss…

Thanks largely to America, the term Democracy is now spoken of reverentially. But is that reverence justified?

Oh it SOUNDS fine – “one person, one vote” – but if 51% of the moronic population have been conned into thinking something by the media barons and politically-correct arseholes who infest our World, it will CARRY – no matter HOW the other 49% of THINKING individuals vote.

Is THIS the Democracy so beloved of “right-thinking” people? Seemingly so.

I recall a fine movie called “The Rise And Rise Of Michael Rimmer” (1970) – one of the ten best films to come out of England – in which Peter Cook rises from a time-and-motion consultant to dictator-for-life of Britain.

It was a political SATIRE, written by Cook, with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Kevin Billington – and produced by David Frost.

And whilst it was intended to be a comedy, it came up with an interesting premise – PURE Democracy.

Like, if everyone nominated issues every week – then voted on them – you would have a country which was TRULY run by the people.

But of course, within weeks, that country would have degenerated into savagery – and gone BROKE. So much for pure Democracy.

What it ACTUALLY means is the ILLUSION of rule by the Common Man, where two parties do what the f*** they LIKE for four or five years – apparently endorsed by the majority of said country.

What proportion of the atmosphere of planet Earth is carbon dioxide? I had a vague idea of a number in the teens. But from Alder Heights comes the answer: 0.038%.

Daily Echo in Bournemouth has a great HAVE YOUR SAY readers’ letters page and, yesterday, under the heading Carbon dioxide is not a poison, is the following:

Successive governments have deliberately destroyed our manufacturing industry. There’s nothing green about manufacturing turbines in China, using electricity from conventional [coal] power stations, then shipping them around the world.

Of course they then have to be moved, on a local level using trades running on diesel before digging foundations for them.

Oh, then there might not be enough wind. Foiled again!

When will this carbon dioxide fascism stop? It’s not a poison!

Any reputable science book will tell you that air is 0.038 per cent carbon dioxide – a trace component!

The entire wind farm argument is built on the myth of peak oil and people’s desire to maintain their ignorance.

“What luck for the rulers that people do not think,” said Adolf Hitler.

Don’t believe what I tell you – do your research

Century after century, human cultures fall for the sensationalisers. It is much more fun to believe sexy nonsense than mundane reality, apparently. So Trillions of dollars will be wasted on wind farms.

By the time the landscape and coastal shelf are littered with worn-out windmills, that we cannot afford to fix, the Green Party and their fellow fascists, along with the mindless mass, will be onto some other quasi-religious nonsense quest…

Tony Paul explained the ten minute delay in his show yesterday. It was a function of the wonderful modern technology. Such stuff could not happen in the days of valves aka tubes. Surprise surprise…

Yet another example of the disadvantages of new ideas and alleged improvements. Remember those polyester shirts that dried well after being washed but clung to your skin because the sweat would not evaporate?

I understand that guys who drive modern motor cars have had to sit and die in a multi-vehicle pile up, unable to accelerate out of the mash, as a runaway truck bears down, because your door is damaged and the car won’t start.

In the AI movie, the robot let the child in the submerged car drown, whilst the man who could swim fine was rescued. And all this because we are ruled now by the mentality of image, novelty, public relations, marketing, and advertising.

The rule goes, in the minds of these worshippers of gloss, that if the sales blurb SAYS a product is a good idea then it MUST be.

I’ve been looking at the UK and US economic situation and I think we are heading for a 30’s style slump. No one wants to admit it looks like a possibility. Forty-six million Americans are now officially below the poverty line. In the North of the UK, employers have zero plans to recruit staff. In the South it is variable with the exception of London where there are also zero plans to recruit. We could be looking at a 10 year problem.

On another problem the news reporting on the internet has been full of political comment about getting people back into work and attacking the unemployed and in particular the young of the nation. No one has talked about the people aged 50 or over who are suffering discrimination by employers who try to circumvent the law and recruit only those under 30.

What is needed is the government to start hitting them hard with huge fines but to date there has been no sign of interest. Every one on pension credit should be re-assessed with a view of making employers employ them for as long as they want to work. This would help take the pressure off benefits providing that no health problems prevent them from being able to discharge their duties. The present system is madness.

There are wealthy people who ARE trash and those who are NOT. The ones who wallow in vulgar materialism to the extreme are disgusting. The ones who give to, or even found, charities to help the less able, are admirable in all aspects.

Matt Taibbi documented the toff trash of the deregulated financial service industry in his articles in Rolling Stone magazine, then in his Book GRIFTOPIA.

Toff is an English slang word short for toffee-nosed. I was mistaken for a toff in a Southport computer class. My accent had slid over the divide, as it does without any intention of mine, when I was asking a question in ironic mode.

“Bloody toffs!” said he, in a stage whisper. He turned out to be a master of ceremonies at a pub off Lord Street. After explanations on the street, after school, he shook hands and apologised.

Our very own Jay, as a man who has worked mega-hard on the technical side of the radio and television industry in UK and West Africa, including transferring veteran newsreel footage to tape prior to the cyber team taking it to the next stage, is very hot against toff criminals. Oh, you noticed?

I am a true social-ist, as distinct from bossy boots trades-union leaders, and fascistic anarchists (a walking-talking contradiction). I can easily be mistaken for a Right-wing extremist by those of little learning who jump to conclusions.

I have little learning myself, so I know what I am talking about. I have jumped to more conclusions in my lifetime than a kangeroo, on the world-famous Toowoomba airstrip, has jumped to avoid an approaching VC 10.

I learned 100% of the truth about Marxist-fascist loony-Left would-be-toff trade-union trash at the Plymouth Guildhall in the mid-sixties.

The Union of Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) had called a meeting to protest against the proposal to extend shop-opening hours. Five hundred of us from Co-op House had flocked there after work that day.

I spoke up for the bosses, telling the pampered shop workers that they should try a REAL job like GPO telephone operator round the clock, or at a hot production factory where things like glass bottles or chocolates were made.

The family folk fussed about not being able to take care of the children if they had to work Sundays and evenings.

I pointed out that they would be able to work the shifts which suited them, whilst people like me would expect the union to push for double time pay evenings and triple pay Sundays.

It was to no avail because USDAW had called the meeting for ONE PURPOSE that being POWER ACQUISITION. They were power-grabbing loony-Left Marxist-fascists.

They called for a vote in favour of the USDAW motion totally opposing Sunday trading. about 499 morons raised their paws. Without a pause the M-f’s at the table brayed:

“Carried unanimously!”

Up on their feet, and rushing for the busses outside on Royal Parade, went the moronic mob. I WAS NOT GIVEN ANY RIGHT TO VOTE AGAINST.

That, dear surfer of the blogosphere, was the spit-second when I became a virulent hater of the EXTREME, hypocritical, power-grubbing, spiritually dysfunctional, evil, extreme Left.

As I said: I am a TRUE-social-ist… too sad, and too bad, that I am also a mentally, and socially, and sexually, dysfunctional pervert… but that has nothing to do with Politics has it?

I was on Jon Snow’s blog “snowblog” and thought I would tip you as to his comments. Of course you can read them yourself but the thrust of the post is the question of why, after 3 years. no bankers have been prosecuted for the 2008 crash?

Snow is saying, quite rightly in my view, that thousands of rioters from last month’s UK riots have appeared in court and been dealt with, in the majority of cases for offences to the value of less than 50 quid! However, with the one exception of Bernard Madof who would have been prosecuted anyway for running a Ponzy scheme, no-one else has been charged.

It’s a fair comment and proves beyond doubt that the little people who carry out minor frauds and fiddles have a high target rate in the eyes of law enforcers, but David Cameron’s former house mates from Eton, who are engaged in major criminal activity of the kind that has in recent years been termed White Collar Crime, are left untouched in the hope that the statute of limitations will run out, in the passage of time, and no one will ever be prosecuted.

As Snow points out, the clock is ticking but there is no sign of any interest or action. Action is limited to the “petty” mob.

Doris Day has become the oldest artist to score a UK Top 10 with an album featuring new material, according to the Official Charts Company.

Day’s My Heart has gone in at number nine, 62 years after the 87-year-old’s debut album was released in the US.

In a career spanning more than 50 years, Day – Hollywood’s “girl-next-door” – has appeared in 39 films and recorded 28 other albums…

…British singer Vera Lynn topped the UK album chart in August 2009, at the age of 92, but that was with a greatest hits album, We’ll Meet Again – The Very Best Of Vera Lynn.

I remember Doris Day from Children’s Favourites on the BBC Light Programme on Saturday mornings in the 1950s. It was mostly her Que Sera Sera that was played very often. I liked it and still find it quite nice. I know the words forwards (I am no good at backwards).

Any star who is still alive from those years makes me feel weird. She was the OLD person who was in movies like Calamity Jane (unless I am mistaking her for someone else). She obviously was younger than I perceived her to be. When you are a child, anybody who is merely grown-up is perceived to be old.

Doris Day is, I have NOW to accept, ONLY 17 years older than I am. Am I now supposed to think of her NOW as in the same age category as ME, namely OLD?

She was 17 when I was born. She remembers World War 2 as a young adult. I was a baby, toddler, and little boy before it was over.

She was accused by the trendies of being prim and proper. They confused her with the characters she typically played. She eventually had to work hard at proving that she could be naughty with the best of them. I sympathised with her.

I never thought of her in the same sensational league as, say, Brigitte Bardot in her Vadim phase. (Actually, NO lady matched up to Bardot.) Doris Day, looks-wise, was neat and tidy, as opposed to exotic. It is an insult to girls and ladies for us men (even no-show crocks like me) to be obsessed with their Looks. But, of course, THEY are, too.

I look forward to seeing a shot on Fox News of Doris Day dancing on the graves of dead critics at wherever plot next to the city dump they end up in, not Forest Lawn (which you look down upon as you walk up Mount Lee Drive, on the back of the HOLLYWOOD sign location) or similar posh spot.

“…whatever will be, will BE… the future’s not ours to see…”

I say: Doris Day is AOK. And I understand that she is highly intelligent. Oh, no space left to write about that aspect. Does anybody have a Comment to add?

Journalists are used to giving both sides of an issue. But the vast majority of Western journalists (those rightly called such) do NOT give both sides of the argument when reporting on the National Socialist Party of Germany, 1928 to 1945.

Now, there are some channels that give both sides (the sane judgements and the hate-based opinions) in the critical issue of what I shall (to avoid malevolent searchers arriving here) call the return of a certain tribe, of a certain faith, to a certain land, in fulfilment of their own prophecy.

And, there are OTHER channels that, rightly, do NOT give both sides of that PARTICULAR issue. Rather they report the EVENTS as opposed to the extreme OPINIONS. I am speaking of English-speaking channels since I have no other language (low-grade shopping French does not count).

Today, Sunday 11 September 2011, the news channels I am monitoring all day, Fox, Sky, CNN, BBC, and a rotation of others on my fifth screen, are covering the tenth anniversary of “911”.

I am writing this with the audio (which is controlled through a push-button source selector box beside my armchair) turned down. I hope soon to liberate myself from the compulsion to write this web log. It is a cursed and sterile addiction.

I finally rejected my childhood indoctrination, which claimed there was a creator who was supposed to be all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, and loving, at the age of about 20.

The truth is that all faiths are superstition. The truth is that all knowledge of the universe and its contents, both living and not living, is best obtained via the microscope, the telescope, and the scientific method of observation followed by experimental testing of postulation to reach a tentative conclusion.

I retain my loyalty to the certain people who returned to their ancient homeland, and I retain my disapproval of those people of a certain other faith who are filled with faith-based hatred for the returnees.

The returnees, from 1882, fleeing from murderers of the Orthodox Christian Church of the Russian Empire, merely desired to buy land and settle as food producers under the more-benign rule of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

But those amongst the returnees who insisted that they would only be free from being victims of the murderous mobs if they, the returnees, set up their own nation-state with their own defence force, were eventually to win the discussion.

Attacks continued as mobs, roused at weekly religious meetings, stormed forth periodically to do murder. Thus was the idea of an actual independent nation-state forced upon the unwilling majority of the returnees.

After a period of rule under the British (who had been given a mandate by the League of Nations) and after the Second World War, where half of the twelve million murdered by Nazi racists (NOT killed in battle) were their own people, the returnees finally won United Nations approval for independence.

The renewed nation desired to live at peace with their neighbours, a refuge at last from religion-based murder. But the neighbouring nation-states, populated in the great majority by people of the aforementioned certain other faith, joined in-mass to exterminate the returnees.

To the surprise of the entire world (with the possible exception of a few fundamentalist Christians) the restored nation, after great sacrifice, won their independence war, and a succession of further wars.

At first, France was an indispensable help, but then, following the turn-coat lead of the Soviet Union, France also turned their coat in order to benefit from the natural fuel resource which the certain other faith happened to be sitting on. USA alone remained 100% staunchly in support.

Which all leads us to the War On Error which preoccupies humankind on planet Earth in this high-technology age.

There are some of the English-speaking TV news channels which allow spokes-people from the certain other faith to give the side of the people who attack the West, as well as attacking the “returnees” who are, of course, now almost all native-born in their renewed nation-state.

But I take care to avoid being insulted by the Nazi-like propaganda from these hate-filled intransigents. Their vitriol actually misrepresents the people in the street who, right from the start in 1882, have wanted only to benefit from mutual tolerance and co-operation with the neighbours of the older faith.

My spiral notebook tells me that I should mention another couple of things:

1) What work actually goes on in places such as the World Trade Center? Was, and is, the WTC a nest of financial services industry thieves? I have NO idea.

2) Anarchists of the extreme Left (NOT to be confused with genuine socialists who fight for social justice and human rights) say they desire to end organised government and start again from scratch.

Any anarchists that existed in a certain area of the planet that has been, since 11-9-2001, following in the footsteps of the Eastern and Central Europe, and of the ex-Soviet Union, have had their desire fulfilled.

Jay prompted me to look at the Hague speaks out story, and I have decided that, since I am paying for BBC (FORCED BY LAW to do so, not paying voluntarily as with the Rupert Murdoch product) I would simply flout any copyright and reproduce the whole shebang:

Foreign Secretary William Hague has said he would like more powers returned to the UK from Europe.

He suggested the UK could “get ahead” by being distant from the European Union in areas other than the euro.

But Mr Hague said the presence of the Liberal Democrats in the coalition government meant he had not been able to do exactly as he wanted on Europe.

He told the Times: “It’s an area we’ve had to compromise on in return for other compromises.”

Some 100,000 people have signed a petition calling for a referendum on EU membership, enough signatures to trigger consideration of a parliamentary debate on the issue.

And about 80 Tory MPs are currently preparing to discuss ways of pressing for a renegotiation of the UK’s position.

On Monday, they are expected to attend the first meeting of a new umbrella group designed to air grievances over Europe and build a platform for influencing government policy.

The gathering is designed to create a focused strategy out of different Conservative concerns and demands for action, ranging from changes to EU institutions such as the European Court of Justice, the repatriation of powers to the UK and outright withdrawal from the EU.

Mr Hague, who fought a highly eurosceptic general election campaign in 2001 as the then Conservative leader, suggested to the Times that the UK might stand apart from the rest of Europe in areas other than the euro.

He said: “It’s true of the euro, it could be true of more areas in future. In fact we may get ahead as a result of being outside.”

The foreign secretary also expressed sympathy towards Tory Eurosceptics who have challenged the prime minister, saying it was certainly not “career suicide” to take their position.

UKIP finally won me over. Now they appear to have triumphed similarly in the Tory leadership. To think how excited I was when there seemed to be a chance of a United States of Europe that would be as good as, say, USA, or Canada with its federal system! How naive! EU is just one big burocretin game.

Given my new financial arrangements, I am able to restart my Sky Package. It was only 24 April 2011 when I quit. I thought it was much longer. They kept phoning to ask if I wanted to re-start the contract. They even offered me a half-price for six months deal.

They have new packages now. It now costs me £25 rather than £22.50p but such is life. It is nice to see Fox News from New York City back again. I will check up on E Entertainment channel. I will also see what Eureka is like.

There they are on Avenue of the Americas at West 48th Street, with the Stars and Stripes and, almost as important, the flag of News Corporation.

I called Cy the morning after the last US elections and asked why these African Americans were cheering and dancing out in the street to the Obama victory? Cy replied “He is a Great Man”.

I said, regardless of that, he is not in a position to do very much. I said he (Obama) was like the British Prime Minister, an elected administrator and nothing more. I also pointed out that it was a few families in the US and UK who controlled 90% of the nation’s wealth that would take a direction as to how the economy and nation proceeds.

At the time Cy said “We have to give him time. He has to have his chance.”

I said to Cy, that won’t make any difference. With that in mind it is with great interest that we can now observe how the Wrigleys and Woolworths of this world have through the Republican Party and the Tea Party conspirators effectively managed to detain Obama in handcuffs pending the passage of time and the lead up to the next American Elections.

Last week a representative of the body that represents the owners of Commercial Television Stations across the United States made mention of the fact that his members were looking forward to the impending 2012 elections and the anticipated windfall that was due to them as the political parties are expected to spend record sums on commercial air-time. Of course the Wrigleys and Woolworths will own or hold stock in a number of these broadcast properties so it will be a double bonus for them.

Smoochie Nice Guy Leaders are just that and nothing more in the real world.

I am reminded of a few lines from the 80’s movie “Wall Street” when the Gordon Gekko character played by Michael Douglaslectures the young upstart played by Charlie Sheen on liquidity. He said:

“I’m not talking about some working stiff executive flying first class. I’m talking about having your own Jet.”

The Wrigleys and Woolworths do own their own Jets.

Airforce One is on loan to the Obamas and their time to play with it has almost run out.

I was on Channel 4 News feed and an item called the Hidden Internet. It as about criminal trade on the internet that the police can’t regulate owing to software that hides the IP address like the Tor software I was using.

The police have relied in the past on credit card transactions and banking data to help trace offenders but now that route has started to fail.

The underworld has introduced its own on line currency called Bit Coins. This enables normal trades on line without the need for financial institutions.

It is more evidence, if any were needed, that those in authority do not understand the cyber cultures and communities and the very real difference between the old analog technology and the endless digital options that are created and re-created as the on-line working environments need for them changes.

The options are only limited by imagination and are therefore infinite, The police and other law enforcement agencies have to understand that in this on-line world they can never lead but will have to follow.

Of course citizens are right to demand privacy. The police and any other official body have zero right to monitor our personal business and private life. That is the reason I use multiple email address options and change mobile numbers, address data and names that I am known by in order to defeat phising.

It is important in any country, but in the UK it has double the importance owing to the number of government agencies phishing at any given time, MI5 being just one of them.

Remember the golden rules:

Never put your real name and address into a computer.

Never put personal banking or credit card details into a computer.

Insist on paying in cash to maintain financial anonymity.

Do not take out a mobile phone contract. Only use unregistered sim cards on pre-pay.

Use more than one alias and have accounts in all and every name possible.

Never use any real ID info, written or photographic on social networking sites.

Every morning I get up and enter my real name into Google search just as I did this morning. It is so satisfying when nothing pops up.

The 2-hour ITV-1 doco on 11-9-2001 last evening (Thursday) told me much more about the 11-hour delay during which the White House staff with President Bush (2) won the fight to keep him and the VP separate.

The rest was very familiar. I watched live from 20 minutes after the first hi-jacked jet-liner hit the south tower (World Trade Center tower 1). Just two shots were new to me.

They were from right at the foot of each tower, in turn, as the tinker-toy assembly gave way, each layer spanging outwards as the weight came down from above it.

The entire structure depended upon the small ledges upon which each floor strut rested. When the floor struts in the fire zone melted into a dip, the end of the strut fell off its ledge.

Fire, reclaimed its crown as the most dangerous enemy of humankind (other than religion). The total killed on 11-9 was 2976.

One thing the comparative damage of Twin Towers and Pentagon established was that hi-rises present an easy-kill zone, low-rises are a more difficult environment in which to harvest murder victims.

I have always been impressed by the calmness that Bush maintained for the sake of the children. The thing about being President in a democracy is that you are a not dictator, just a presider. In the 11-9 attack, Bush presumed the secret service people knew best. After 11 hours, he could stand it no longer.

There is no hope of the sort of progress, here, that might change a nation into a dynamic force that could drive an emerging economy into a First World contender.

I draw this conclusion after meeting a woman on the street who enquired what church I belonged too. I told her I did not have any religion and had no wish for any entity of any kind to look out for me, or indeed save me, should the space ship on which we live malfunction or fail.

She asked me if I owned a computer. I replied that I did, and she further enquired if I still had the handbook for the computer? I replied that I did. She said:

“Well even if you don’t have any religion, it is a good idea to have your own bible, as it is a handbook for life. Like your computer handbook that gives you all the operating instructions, The Bible is your handbook on how to navigate your way through life.”

The “Tro Tro” is a van about the size of a Leyland Sherpa or Ford Transit that is over fitted with small seats, and used as a mini bus, and is the main form of transport for citizens who don’t own cars. It is the cheapest way to get around, and the most dangerous as drivers often fall asleep at the wheel or crash into other vehicles causing fatalities frequently.

I took one the other day, as I have done many times, and, as has happened in the past, a passenger sitting at the front took it upon himself to lecture this captive audience on the teachings of Jesus Christ.

He said, looking at me, that the stately homes of England and the luxury homes in California were nothing compared to the homes that were being prepared in heaven for all of us, so long as we live this life by god’s will.

As a caveat to this monologue, he said that, by the way, the streets in heaven are Gold. With an air of authority, he stated, yes, solid gold. We don’t use asphalt like we do on Earth.

I pointed out that he was not thinking, as, if it were true that gold replaced asphalt, then, like asphalt, it would be so common as to have little value, and therefore his remarks were irrelevent.

I further pointed out that gold would be a pain to drive on when wet, owing to its shiny and slippery surface, and that good old asphalt was a much better proposition.

The guy said that that was speculation, and there was no way I could say something like that with any authority.

I pointed out that he was also speculating, as he had not returned from the supposed kingdom of the lord.

He replied that he was right, as this had been confirmed by his pastor who was in contact with the holy ghost, on a regular basis, in the matter of healing the sick, and that “Miracles” were regularly performed by his pastor, with the help of the holy ghost.

Interesting he should mention the holy ghost, as it was only earlier this week that one of the newspapers here ran a story about a pastor who had raped 5 sisters.

The pastor was arrested by detectives and, when questioned, told them there was no case to answer as, you’ve guessed it: he was operating under the direct instructions of the holy ghost.

The Con Dems are to withdraw the long distance [National Express] coach travel concession in England from 31 October. I have only used the concession a couple of times in my life but I note that 3 million such journeys were made last year.

It’s good news to me in that the more voters who feel aggrieved by this will all help towards a Labour win next time around. I say Labour will win, as public feeling is such that the Lib Dems are already history.

I know it was a huge temptation for Nick Clegg [Liberal Democratic Party Leader] to give his party a chance to play with the real thing after 60 years in opposition, but he should have known that to let the Tories in after Major and Thatcher, was a non survivable situation.

Hence the word at street level is now one of anticipating a House of Commons after the next election with the Lib Dems in single figures. If that happens the “Third” party could die out forever and we may see a Parliament with a 2-party system like the US. That would make the Commons a more straight forward place to do business.

Don’t know how long this will last as here they just switch things off to carry out maintenance without warning and if the public phone in to ask what is going on they will act dumb and say don’t worry our engineers will find the problem as soon as possible, leaving them with however long they want to do their work.

I switched to network Air-Tel as their data services always appeared to be on. I was on Vodafone prior to this but, after 8 days with no data, I went to their head office only to be told by their staff that they had no internet connection all week and could not tell me when it would be back.

The power company try to announce cuts regarding their work but the other week there was an unannounced cut in the capital Accra. The power company said some members of the public had broken into the Sub-Station at Cantonments Area and removed cables connected to power transformers so that the cables could be sold for the copper value to scrap merchants.

The same thing happened to our neighbour who has a bungalow. The power cables connecting them to the pole were low enough for thieves to be able to put a step-ladder up in the dead of night and remove them.

The power company took 7 days to install new cables, in Africa everything has a value and everyone has their own scam, the only question on anyone’s mind here when meeting someone they don’t know is…

The employment agency “Hays” who deal with a lot of professional and managerial job placements has a contract with the Royal Bank of Scotland to supply labour in various areas on a temporary basis.

RBS is 80% owned by the British tax payers since the banking crash in 2008. RBS is at this time in the process of making cutbacks and redundancies throughout its business.

This morning an employee of Hays Recruitment sent an e-mail to some of its contractors by mistake. The e-mail detailed what some of their temporary staff at RBS are being paid and guess what? Some have agreements worth £2000 Per Day and all this in a bank that would not even exist were it not for the British Taxpayer.

This is the level of contempt that we are all held in and don’t forget, if the temporary employee is getting £2000 Per Day, the day rate being charged by Hays to the bank for that employee will be double that.

In these circumstances why should anyone living on benefits accept cuts???

This all confirms what I have been saying to you and others for a very long time, that the banks were out of control and had total contempt for everyone else. The final pay off to Sir Fred at RBS should have been stopped by the government and even now his bank account should be frozen pending a recovery action.

I was first alerted to how companies bleed government (Taxpayers) white back in the 80’s when I was involved in a maintenance contract for the Royal Navy.

One small plastic component that we were paying 10p for was invoiced at £10. Government, and in particular Defence, contracts are like printing your own bank notes. One boss said to me, they (the Government) have an obligation to look after the interests of British Business.

It was that same frame of mind that saw Honourable Members of the Lords and Commons use creative accounting in the recovery of expenses.

I guess the proposed local tv licences that are going to be introduced in Wales are an experiment that will be monitored by all interested parties for viability and commercial competence. If it all works out then I suspect the licences will be introduced in England based on the existing operating model.

It will provide some employment in local communities but there won’t be any ITV style wages like the old days of ITV. I would think salaries will be more in line with shops and supermarkets. I’m not that convinced that there is that big a market for local tv. The cut backs in ITV regional news were effected because of falling ratings for regional news shows across the entire country.

Sat and Cable TV provide multi-channel choice 24/7 so a viewer can find something to watch whenever they choose to channel surf. At the end of the day, will viewers really want to tune their tv into a live debate from a Newport City Council meeting of locally elected officials or will they want to tune their sky box into the latest CSI Miami? I guess the Jury is still out on that one.

Yesterday afternoon, The Compiler dropped by my flat on his way to Boscombe. He is on IMDB all the time adding details to his logs of movies that he just saw on TV. I showed him Sumpnado and he pronounced the name “sump NAA doe”. So today I have made the change that you see on the Header. Vincent recently said that “Sumpnado” is esoteric and I appreciate how that could be seen as a good thing.

No offence to my fellow contributors, but I think the truth is that, on balance, the character of the blog is unsophisticated, and “just folks” style. So it is better to neither hide nor pretend, but simply to admit that it IS just something to do, at least for me. Without blogging, I would be bored out of my skull!

Sumpy (as Vincent call it) does NOT pretend to be the Journal of the Association of the Great Minds of the Universe. It it WERE something like the aforementioned JAGMU, 99% of my stuff would not be used. (I had better hurriedly add that ALL of the other guys’ stuff would be received with delight and published post haste.) The 1% of mine would be included in “Examples to help contributors determine what to avoid” I expect.

So I want to give the title JUST SOMETHING TO DO a fair try. We can always end up calling it THIS IS NOT EVEN SILLY or WE BEG YOU TO STOP A MINUTE or CAN YOU SERIOUSLY BE SAYING YOU HAVE SOMETHING BETTER TO DO THAN READ THIS? Actually… we might even change the name EVERY DAY…

-Cy

RESPONSE FROM Jay:

I don’t think its a big deal to get hung up about names etc, I fully understand that you use this blog to amuse yourself and pass the time of day. I have been doing the same thing over the past 10yrs with younger women. My opinion is that a blog needs HITS to make it more than an amusement and I have in the past few weeks sent you some posts that I thought would attract comment from outraged citizens but they did not.

Don’t know if it is of any help to mention, but I find myself sometimes reading blogs because they inform me with behind the scenes comment that can’t reach me through the normal channels or what I like to call “Surface Communications”.

A good example would be what is going on in Tripoli, Our news coverage [in Ghana] is not as good as yours [in UK] so I found myself on the blogs of correspondents in the field to find out what is going on at ground level, things and info not available in the main media feeds.

What interests me is its making use of the medium to communicate the alternative, or insider, or informed comment that you can’t hear on the radio. Hope this helps.

Max Bygraves would have been age 51 in 1971 when we [Jay and Cy] were at Exmouth Road. I remember his having a new TV show that was on ITV. At least that’s what I’m thinking after all these years. My instinct is that he had switched from the BBC by 1971 and ITV had developed a new show called “Sing a long a Max” but I’m not sure. That period in the history of UK television light entertainment was not good for new and up and coming entertainers.

I hated Max as I was 21 and he was 51 and in my mind at that time he was ancient and represented the Show Biz Establishment (Mafia). The all powerful BBC still had shows like “The Billy Cotton Band Show” a throw back to the days of vaudeville.

Cotton was God at the BBC for some unknown reason and hand picked the acts that appeared on his show each week. Of course those picked were his friends and mates like Russ Conway or Kathy Kay, not much chance of new acts breaking in on his show. A very small elite group of no more than 6 people would decide who got seen on network television and who stayed on the club circuit.

Heads of light entertainment at the BBC and ITV stations like ATV, Thames, London Weekend, Granada and Yorkshire controlled everything. Their power was amazing.

At that time the country only had 3 television channels, so to appear on ANY show provided an artist with very powerful levels of exposure. That exposure was in reality more valuable than any appearance fee. Of course little has changed at the BBC but the plethora of channels now available on Cable, Sat and Freeview has reduced audience figures across all channels to a point where these heads of light entertainment can no longer operate their cosy club ever again, That has passed into history.

The UK and USA networks both share the same phenomenon. If you appeared on television in the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s, everyone in the country knew who you were. It was the ultimate Ego Trip for a select few and I have listened to retired continuity announcers from that era refer to it as “More Like Hollywood”. That situation can never be repeated now. It is possible to appear on a cable channel every night of the week and find yourself performing in “Showbiz Isolation”.

As a trainee technician in 70’s commercial television I recall getting a lot more money than my mates down the pub and I further recall a professional level of manning on crews, something that today has been replaced by one man and his mini DV camcorder. The Pro’s have deserted television and left it in the hands of Gamers who just happen to put programmes to air when they’re not playing on line, hence the state of presentation and technical operations. This has now positioned the industry where half of the population would prefer to be On Line rather than Tuned In. I’m one of them.

It is theists who, despite billions of people suffering deprivation and disease, all day, every day, around planet Earth, insists in fatuous burbling that “God is love”.

The thorn-caster and thistle-caster of Genesis is a product of the imagination of spiteful men of primitive, flat-world days, who thought it was perfectly alright to play SEE WHAT YOU MADE ME DO.

What a pity that pea-brains such as nuns (who Piers Morgan says raised him) and the man himself get to wield influence and control over the minds of innocents.

One last word:

If humankind invent FTL drive (viable as soon as we also invent shields against cosmic particle strike) and arrive at, say, Nut Star 9, and find, say, a bunch of nutter-kind who believe in The Unseen Sacred Lord Flopadoodle Poncybags The Wholly Holy Holey, is Piers going to waste his time arguing with the idiots? And is Piers then going to deny being in denial?

Or is he going to save his breath?

As I ought to have done…

Damn…!

Wait a minute. Piers wasn’t KIDDING, was he?

AN ANSWER FROM Vincent:

Tragically, no. Piers is a solid Catholic God-botherer. He’s admitted as much on his CNN show.

I watched the first week – it was BIZARRE – his guests ALTERNATED between the interesting and the sickening – and so did PIERS.

Here’s the list:

Day 1: Oprah – after five minutes, I had to stop watching, for fear of being drowned in the OIL SLICK.

I remember the Rothmans Team doing a stunt show over Plymouth Hoe in the late 70’s and at Plymouth Airfield I met their then leader Brian Lacombe (not sure about the spelling) we had a short conversation about the Pitts Special the aircraft he was flying but I did not really know who he was so I talked to him like I would any guy in the street.

It was some 6 years later that a salesman working for Rediffusion informed me I had been talking with a legend. I guess he was happy to chat with me as I did not come across as a member of the public with a fan like mentality and start seeking autographs etc.

I guess the Flying Boats from Poole harbour [Salterns Pier] were the Sunderlands built by Shorts Brothers? These aircraft were the main stay of communication links in the British Empire and carried their passengers in standards of comfort that are still being talked about today in informed circles.

A flight in the 1930’s in one of these machines from Cairo to Cape Town for instance would be an experience one would never forget. These amazing machines spread out around the empire and it was just as common to see one leaving Australia for the various South PacificLocations in the empire, as it was to see one leaving the South Coast UK for Africa.

It was a time in our history when a lucky few would enjoy a travel experience that would never be repeated again. It could be said that the second phase of this type of exclusive travel was Concord? However if that were true it could never be the same. The flying boats had Beds, Bar and Observation Deck so that those whoruled and regulated the empire could observe what they controlled from their very exclusive aerial platform.

I guess every decade has something unique and special, it just so happens that in the 1930’s it was the Sunderlands.

Like many other people who have posted on the net, I am just happy that Murdoch does not get a penny from me or them. At the end of the day if subscribers are being overcharged because of a cartel between News Corp and the major Hollywood studios it will go against him in any further requests he may make to the regulator in the UK.

Fox News is now viewed internationally as Murdoch’s propaganda channel. A variety of American journalists and comentators report on its un-professional conduct in not reporting the events around the NOTW phone hacking story and their broadcasts that just carried on as if nothing was happening to their boss and owners.

It’s a situation that underlines just how important BBC World and other BBC international services are, as Fox viewers had to tune to CNN or BBC America to see coverage.

The FBI is now looking into possible phone hacking and other matters that have come to light. If Murdoch thinks the UK market is over regulated he’s seen nothing yet. His network licenses could be suspended or he could be forced to sell.

The Yanks are very fussy about their rules and regulations and view any infringement in a serious light. It is the main reason why the city of London attracts a lot of high-flying financial players who by choice have turned their backs on New York. London has a light touch regulator, or did prior to the 2008 crash.

A lot of people involved in the sixties pirates are posting their thoughts and pictures on line. It must be the realisation that time is running out. Some have already passed and their photo’s have been made available by those who survived them.

There are so many to check out. One site I was looking at was “the pirate radio hall of fame” and the section on the engineers who worked on the ships turned up a few surprises. This included pictures of documents relating to manning rosters for the engineers on Caroline North and South, Tender sailing times, Transmitter log layouts etc.

One guy said he passed on a box of colour slides (half frame) to the web site after being given them by a guy in work who said he worked on Caroline in the sixties as a transmitter engineer. That guy was now working for a company who supplied and maintained Radiography equipment to hospitals. He clearly had little interest now and gave the slides to a younger guy who he probably thought would look after them for posterity.

Fortunately the young dud had the presence of mind to get them to a suitable website and let the world see them, I also noticed that reference was made to some of the partners of crew who had passed in enlisting their help and co-operation in referencing comment and publishing their photos.

From memory, it was the election of Margaret Thatcher that was the last time I cast my vote in a General Election. After her first five years in Downing Street, I realised I would have to move on from my position as an employee, who was part of the PAYE system, and take control of improving my own position through Freelance/Self Employed Contracts.

This proved the way to go, as I was able to manipulate not only my income but also my chosen lifestyle. In short I had no need to listen to posturing political parties anymore.

In 1989 I watched the Berlin wall come down on CNN from ‘Harolds Place’ the best burger bar in South Florida (voted the best for the past 21 years) and like the other assembled Yanks realised history was being made that day.

It was the same feeling last week, again from a tropical location (BoJo Beach Ghana) where I listened to reports of London Burning on the BBC’s FM Relay here for the World Service. Once again history was being made.

The ground work was being laid. It won’t be fast or easy but Cameron and Clegg will go and pass into history. A new order has ordained it. Who knows? They may both take their tent down and join me on BoJo Beach, very preferable to Westminster.

I have no idea if anyone is reading this blog (?) as I only see the usual feedback from the usual suspects. However, should there be a wider audience out there somewhere in cyberspace, most would have to agree with the content and detail of the France 24 report.

There is one point over-looked by all, and that is the unique political situation in the UK where two political leaders, who were both firmly rejected by the country’s electorate, hold self-appointed positions of power.

Cameron and Clegg are conducting their own experiment with the nation’s economy and social structure but in essence represent no-one. It is not a situation I can endorse, and therefore I do not have any problem with the social fight back being conducted on the streets of Britain by an abused youth and social underclass.

I do hope they re-group and continue to hammer the point home to those who believe they have some automatic right to power, and the abuse of.

“Why did I do it?” is the headline in The Times this morning. A young lady graduate of university, set for a career in social work, took a flat-screen TV on the spur of the moment, during the recent mass smash-grab-torch raids, and has handed it in to police.

Instantly, I think of Jekyll and Hyde, and of a machine on Manual control or Automatic. Unless we are in conscious control, with rational thinking processes switched on, we can do stupid things.

“The best souvenirs are free” says C B Wentworth, in the title of a Post on offer in the WordPress Freshly Pressed feature this morning. It sounds as if he or she is talking about picking up shells and pebbles off the beach.

There are also interesting things that fall off trees, that are interesting and will preserve themselves indefinitely on your shelf, whilst it awaits more books.

Loe Bar, just east of Porthleven in Cornwall, is the best beach for pebbles that I (in my limited experience) know of, but beware…

Stay up on the dry shelf where the pebbles are wind-blown, trodden, and polished. Do not venture down, below the steep slope, to the gently crashing waves. The seventh, or the forty-ninth, or whatever, will swoosh in violently, with no warning, and grab you off your feet…

I was waiting for the yellow 26 on Alma Road, yesterday, when a middle-aged man with a modulated North of England accent addressed the old guy at the stop, and was ignored.

Then he addressed the second old guy. Oh. Yes. That was me. From inside, I do not look old. It is only to people on the outside (that judge by appearances) who decide that I am old.

The man was threading a bandage through the waistband loops of his dark-khaki pants. He was very fit, with a narrow waist, and no hips to speak of. He said:

“I’ve been to eight shops trying to get a belt. I HATE England. My belt broke. A man likes a belt… I keep this for strapping up my arm.”

I responded that I did not have the problem. The waistband of my jogger bottoms was elasticized. But I did express hearty agreement with him, generally along the lines of: things not being what they used to be.

The man had a tan over his Anglo-Saxon features. This fact, coupled with his unexpected hatred of what I had to presume was his native land, led me to Sherlock that he was a returned native. He must have spent many years abroad, in a sunnier climate.

He told me (when he could get a paragraph in edgeways between my brief interpolations) that nobody (except me, clearly) would reply to him, in England. They all ignored him when he spoke to them.

Then he mentioned the troubles last weekend.

I said my usual piece about how I once thought we were putting together a lovely rainbow nation, but unfortunately had gotten a bunch of maniacs in the mix, believing all sorts of extreme religion. He responded:

“I don’t know why people have to believe ANYTHING. I don’t believe anything.” I came back (with gesticulations):

“Exactly. Whatever we see in the microscope, or the telescope, exists.” To my astonishment he made eye contact and vouchsafed in a completely different, soft, conversational tone of voice:

“The quantum mechanics people interfere with that a bit…”

The man was educated!

He gave the wrong impression until it was brought out. You could have feathered me down with a knock. So I agreed:

“Oh, they are just IDIOTS. They’re Just science FICTION fans…”

With pants secure, he resumed his eastward stroll for Charminster, declaring his intention to try the motor-bike shop.

“I’ll get one with a skull buckle…” he added, in a possibly-jocular afterthought…

Five minutes later, we passed him in the bus. He was still only a third of the way to Charminster Road. Then he would have to motivate an equal hike down the hill to Saint Alban’s Crescent.

Young folk (Hip-Hoppers) and middle-aged folk (Punkers) have to either pay or tramp. Us 60-plus folk (Hippies and Teddy Boys) get the free bus ride. The country cannot afford it for much longer…

Napoleon XIV was Jerry Samuels – a songwriter/producer working for ARS (no, really). He followed up his opus with an album of similarly-themed songs and later, an “update” disc called “They’re Coming To Get Me Again, Ha-haaa”.

Oh, and Josephine XV was in fact Jerry, with his voice speeded-up.

Sadly, only his original waxing did any serious business.

If you are curious about the Josephine version – or the later update – I have BOTH. But unfortunately, WordPress won’t let me put them onto this piece (something about “security”).

I am still wending my merry way from Peterborough to Huntingdon every morning for work (it’s now week 19 of my 7 week contract!) and passing that somewhat dreary 40 minute trip listening to Wonderful Radio Alfie 88.1FM. As I’ve explained previously this comprises my MP3 player set to “random play” and hooked up to one of those little 10 metre range FM transmitters, playing through my car stereo.

Today the first song played was “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynryd Skynyrd which I recognised as belonging to that odd musical category known as “Answer Songs” because they came into being solely as a response to a previous song. The particular track mentioned was a somewhat annoyed reply to “Southern Man” by Neil Young which slagged off Redneck racism in the cotton states of the USA, including Alabama!

Having recognised an example of this genre and knowing that there are hundreds of others I tried to think of some! And (remembering that I was concentrating on my driving too) I came up with exactly……TWO – and one of those I couldn’t remember the title or the artiste of! THAT was the response song to Lesley Gore’s “It’s my party..”

The other which I DID remember the details of was the response to the weird and wacky “They’re coming to take me away ha ha!” by the anonymous “Napoleon XIV” in 1966 and I was aware that there exists (although I don’t remember hearing it) “I’m happy they took you away” by a similarly anonymous but inevitable, Josephine XV”.

So, having failed miserably at that, I tried to think of as yet unwritten Answer Songs to whatever came out of the speakers. Again, flat failure until………..

Just as I was pulling into my parking place a track came on that gave me two reasons for celebration!

Firstly, it was a song that seemed to me to be crying out for a response.

Secondly, the reply that I thought of gave me a happy reassurance that, at age 58, my dirty mind is as fully functional and filthy as it ever was!

So, what was the song?

It was by Carly Simon and it has the glorious title “Why does your love hurt so much?”

While the community in Tottenham may have concerns about the police shooting dead Duggan, I do not believe that was the reason for the riots. This is the people of the uk saying we are not going to be abused anymore. We are no longer doormats.

It is in fact the same reaction to political positioning that we have seen affecting regime changes across north africa and the middle east. If this was being effected across the country then we could get rid of the coalition and monarchy.

It needs nationwide co-ordination possibly through twitter and that will provide the control platform needed to install a caretaker administration for the day by day management of the nation until the bones of the new republic have been worked out.

The current situation is not in the interest of the nation or citizens, it is only of benefit to a very small elite group who should have been deposed before Thatcher gave them some sort of credibility.

Radio Caroline Memories is a site posted by Sheridon Street. He is clearly not an anorak because, at the age of 23, in 1966, having obtained his ham radio license, he managed to get a job on Caroline as a Transmitter engineer, and was taken off on the last tender on 14 August 1967.

He then joined Redifon, the transmitter division of Rediffusion, along with another engineer from Caroline South. He is clearly not the best writer in the world but tells an interesting tale from his vantage point behind the scenes.

Like Vincent, he has also retired to Thailand. His UK call sign is G3VFU. A link to his site can be found under Radio links on the Sumpnado Sidebar…

Sheridon writes:

I have always said the guys who got the best gigs in the sixties were born during the war, or by 1945 at the latest. I was a bit too young to get in at a meaningful time.

The age of adulthood was still 21 and my parents made it clear that the police would be called in if I attempted to join the pirates. I can’t remember when it was lowered to 18. Enjoy the memories.

The sixties was always the most professional, interesting, and best financed and organized pirate era.